California’s lawyer-AI law makes verification a named personal duty
SB 574 requires lawyers using generative AI to verify outputs, correct errors and personally verify filed citations. Firms should redesign evidence and sign-off, not merely add a policy reminder.
What happened
California’s governor signed SB 574 on 30 September. The measure bars lawyers from delegating legal practice to generative AI and names verification, correction, confidentiality and court-disclosure duties.
Why it matters
The statute attaches accountability to the responsible lawyer and personally verified citations, shifting the control question from tool approval to demonstrable review of each material output.
California’s enacted SB 574 says an attorney may not delegate the practice of law to generative AI. A lawyer using it must take reasonable steps to verify outputs, including case and statutory citations, and correct erroneous or hallucinated material. The measure also restricts entry of confidential or nonpublic information into systems without appropriate access controls and requires disclosure of AI use for documents submitted to court.
For filed papers, the responsible attorney must personally verify citations, including citations supplied by AI. Reuters reported that the governor signed the measure on 30 September and noted both implementation burden and overlap with existing professional duties. That overlap is counterevidence to claims of a wholly new competence model; it does not remove the named statutory obligations.
Turn review into evidence
A firm should separate four records: source verification for every citation; comparison of propositions with the cited authority; correction of generated text; and the signing lawyer’s final attestation. Delegated research may support the process, but final personal verification cannot be represented by a generic tool approval or a paralegal checkbox.
Confidentiality needs a separate gate before prompting. Classify the information, confirm the tool’s access and retention conditions, and block use where the required restriction is absent. Do not retain sensitive prompts merely to prove review.
The Skills Intelligence Role Dictionary can make verification and signing accountability explicit without becoming legal advice.
The immediate decision is to pilot a citation ledger on one matter type, recording source, proposition, verifier, correction and sign-off. Counsel should determine the law’s effective application and interaction with existing rules.